Top 10 Things to be known by Android Beginners

Android operating system is the most widely used Smartphone OS when compared to Blackberry and iOS. Here’s the beginners guide to android.

Android operating system is the most widely used Smartphone OS when compared to Blackberry OS and iOS from Apple. If you are a beginner to use an Android phone, you should know certain things in order to use it effectively.

Apps Installation from Google Play

As an Android user, the first thing you should know about is Google Play which was earlier called the Android market. It is the home of more than half a million free as well as paid apps and games.

There are plenty of essential Android apps developed by freelancer Android developers around the world. So, if you want to download any apps for your phone, you can go to Google Play, download and install it easily.

Options Menu and Menu Button

For making effective usage of screen space in the smart phone, the applications have a separate “Options” menu that acts in functionality same as menus found in Desktop apps. Some beginners might not be aware of them and tend to miss important features of the app and also don’t know how to properly quit from the app or game. You should use the menu button on your phone to view option menu from which you can select the suitable options.

Long press and the Context Menu

In order to activate the context menu, you should use the “Long Press” option. This menu allows you to perform particular actions on the screen and is like a shortcut. This is similar to right-click option in the desktop.

Notifications Menu

The Notification menu is a very good way to get notified of events and activities in the system without interrupting your current activity. For instance, if there is missed call, new update for an app or charging of the battery all these events will be notified in the Notifications menu. You can tap on the notification menu to view a detailed list of the apps and clear them using ‘Clear’ button.

Voice Actions

You can use your voice input to search for something in Google using the “voice actions” feature in Android. You can also use this option to call contacts, get directions and send text message to your contacts. In order to use voice search feature, you should long press search button or click microphone on your on-screen keyboard.

Multi-tasking and Killing Unwanted Tasks

Android OS supports excellent multi-tasking and depending on processor and RAM on your phone, you can open as many applications in parallel as you want. The apps will continue to run on background and you can switch between apps easily. You can long press the home button to view list of recently used apps and switch between apps.

Sometimes if you have lot of applications open like this, it might occupy too much memory and CPU resources. Hence, you can download “Task Killer” applications for free from Android market. These Task Killers will help in closing unwanted apps running in the background and improves the performance of your phone.

Making Use of Home screens and Widgets

You can customize the “home screens” in your Android desktop and add whatever shortcuts, widgets, folders, wallpapers and contacts you wish. In order to switch between various home screens you can just swipe your fingers across the screen.

If you want to move an item, you need to wrong press it and drag it to new location and you can also delete it in same way by moving it to trash area. You can add various widgets like calendar, clock, Facebook, music players etc. to these home screens as you wish. You can also add live wallpapers to Android desktop which you can download for free from Google Play.

Using Folders

In order to organize and maintain your home screen you can add shortcuts to important folders on your home screen. In order to add folder, you can just click Menu button and choose Add Folders and select New Folder. You can add or remove items by long pressing and dragging it towards the folder. You can also add live folders that can automatically update contents like email, playlists, news and contacts.

Setting Screen Lock

Security is an important requirement and you need to safeguard your phone from theft of important data. You can always lock the screen using text passwords, patterns or pins so that anyone can’t open it without the password.

Saving Battery Life

Since smart phones usually have big screens and many applications running in background, it will soon run of battery. So, you should know how to turn-off unwanted apps which are running in background like live wallpapers, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS navigation, 4G, background social media apps like Facebook, Twitter etc. By closing such unwanted apps you can increase the battery life.